


Who Is The Girl Behind The Red Door?

by Eternalxblossom



Category: One Tree Hill
Genre: Because Brooke is amazing, Character Analysis, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-12 01:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18001625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eternalxblossom/pseuds/Eternalxblossom
Summary: Basking in the afternoon light, Brooke reflects on everything that had led to this point in her life. She's come a long way, yet she'll always be the girl behind the red door. And that's okay.Brooke-centric/Brulian. One-shot.





	Who Is The Girl Behind The Red Door?

Brooke Davis - Fashion designer. Icon. Role model. Celebrity. Person of interest. If you'd ask the tabloids, that's what they'd tell you Brooke Davis is. And maybe, on some level, they'd be right.

But labels like that don't even get close to scratching the surface of the complex, conflicted character that the famous fashion designer actually is. There are so many sides to Brooke Davis - just like her clothes, there are layers to her personality that many people don't get to see.

Brooke is no stranger to labels. She's been analyzed, categorized and judged her whole life and especially in high school, irrespective of her will. She's been known as the party girl or the slut and often treated as such or reduced to her label because few people bothered to look underneath.

She would be lying to say that it didn't hurt. She would be lying to say that none of it hurt. Not even her best friend, Peyton Sawyer, knew the extent of her struggle. She was barely aware that all of her meaningless hook-ups or drunk acts at high school parties were actually meant to protect how human she was at heart, how much it devastated her to be the kid who could easily be tossed a credit card as a hollow substitute for affection and maternal care, to be so easily forgotten and neglected.

Sometimes she felt like a burden to her family and wondered if she was better off without them. They weren't around much anyway, and when they were, they acted like strangers. But then she'd see Karen with Lucas or Peyton with her foster father and she'd feel this growing ache in her chest, she'd be so jealous and resentful inside for not having at least a tenth of what they had – a sense of home. Home wasn't a perfect notion for anyone, especially her friend Nathan, who seemed to be the one to understand her best. She knew that, she had no right to be jealous of anyone, but at times she felt like she didn't even have what they had - a home, however dysfunctional. She was just living in a big house, hiding behind a red door.

Maybe that's why she liked to party so much or hook up with random guys – to avoid going home to that emptiness, to avoid being reminded of everything she didn't have. Not even her best friend could fill that void. She wondered if anyone ever could, or if she'd be brave enough to let them.

Because of that, she had grown to maintain that shallow image in high school. It was easier than to be exposed. She didn't care about the way she was perceived, as long as she had a few people who knew the truth, or at least, bits and pieces of it.

Lucas Scott had screwed up her plans royally. He had taken her by storm and unknowingly let himself in with his apparent caring nature and gentle spirit, with no intention of leaving too soon. He had fed her white lies and rom-com speeches and empty promises and she let him, she let herself bask in them, she let herself believe she was worthy, for once. She allowed herself to be broken time and time again and she'd be lying to say that she still didn't carry a Lucas Scott shaped hole in her heart even when she returned to Tree Hill again for her best friend. He was her first love – or maybe her first chance at love. That's what she thought.

But she was wrong. Apparently Brooke Davis would always be the giver but never the receiver. She loved so fiercely, held so tight and, at times, it was in vain. Sam left, Peyton and Lucas left, despite their hollow promises that they'd stay or return for her. She had spent hours and hours working on Peyton's wedding dress (three times, actually) and her best friend didn't even come home for her wedding. She had no right to hold that against her, because baby Sawyer was sick and she understood, but a part of her still did.

A part of her still awakened in the dead of night, asking herself if she mattered as much to those around her as they meant to her. But that's when she'd feel his strong, protective hold and his familiar stubble brushing against her shoulder as she slept, wordlessly chasing her fears and reassuring her in a way only he knew how to – Julian.

Julian Baker - her husband, her friend, her one true love. Julian, who still made her ache with his touch in the best possible way, who still somehow managed to give her butterflies like she was in high school all over again. Julian, with his stupid, goofy grin and romantic descriptions of her. He was the man who made her believe again. Julian was everything Lucas Scott couldn't be for her. He didn't just use big words or grand speeches, he owned up to them – he didn't just think of her as creative and kind and beautiful and amazing, he made her believe that she was or that she could be, he gave her the courage to take a leap of faith and allow herself to _feel_ again after being repeatedly hurt and abused and forgotten by the people who should've held onto her tight.

He gave her a fairytale life – two beautiful sons and a house that was no longer empty, but a safe haven that resonated with laughter and joy and happiness. As she sat on the porch drinking iced tea and inhaling the chilly afternoon air, she was graced with the familiar Tree Hill view and reminded of how far she's come. But as her eyes shifted away, she was graced by another view - it was the image of the most important people in her life. As she gazed into his familiar, brown eyes that always saw beyond the surface, her hold on his hand only grew stronger – it was big, slightly callous but so incredibly soft. It was the hand she wanted to hold for the rest of her life. He was her home. _They_ were her home – her two baby boys who seemed to be growing up overnight. Soon they'd be men and she'd grow and witness that, knowing that she was blessed with a life she never would have envisioned for herself. She wanted to freeze time right then, to cherish those little moments, knowing just how much heartache and pain it took to get there.

Because now she finally had a family.

But no matter how blissfully accomplished she felt, she knew Brooke Davis would always be the girl behind the red door – the girl who always felt too much and expressed too little, the girl who sometimes cried herself to sleep at night because she had no one to tuck her in or tell her how proud they were of her becoming student body president or designing a fashion line.

The only difference is that, now, that lost, affection-deprived girl had found _happiness_. That girl had found _love_. And it's okay. Because now she finally feels worthy of it all - she earned it, she deserves it. And she wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.


End file.
